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BioMed Town is an online resource, borne out of the Sixth Framework Programme Coordination Action STEP (A Strategy for the Europhysiome).  It is a meeting place open to Biomedical Research & Technology, Biomedical Industry and Clinical Practice, and aims to support networking and information sharing - key activities underpinning any integrative/interdisciplinary research community.  It is open to all those who have a professional or educational interest in biomedical research & technology. 

The STEP Project

The first aim of the STEP project, which began in early 2006 as part of the EU Sixth Framework Programme, was to establish a dialogue between researchers working within similar disciplines, in order to form a basis for the development of a ‘roadmap' outlining the challenges ahead in the development of a Virtual Physiological Human.  Six consultation ‘strands' were created in the areas of Hard Tissues, Soft Tissues, Fluids, Anatomy & Physiology, Multiscale Modelling and ICT Infrastructure, with approximately 100 international experts being invited to contribute to discussions, in order to provide as broad a range of relevant external opinion as possible.

The function of these consultation groups, or strands, was to - in short - each develop a consensus document, written from the perspective of their own community, on the technical challenges faced, the priorities for, and the approaches to developing the Virtual Physiological Human.  The relevant experts were actively engaged in this process by way of active Internet-based discussions - within BioMed Town.  The six consensus documents were then compiled to establish a universal document, reflecting the diversity of opinion gathered.

The first STEP Conference was held in May 2006, during which the six reports were presented and formally merged. At this time the strands were merged into a single Expert Panel, to comment on the first version of the ‘STEP roadmap' as a whole.  The roadmap was subsequently published on BioMed Town, and comments/input and further revisions were invited until a second open conference - STEP: Towards the Virtual Physiological Human - was held in Brussels in November, 2006.

This second conference provided the first opportunity for large-scale "live" discussion of the issues that had emerged from the earlier STEP consultation/roadmapping activities.  All input, in whatever form received, was processed after the event and fed into subsequent roadmap drafts, where appropriate. The STEP roadmap went through several more editions in the following months, before reaching its final form.

The STEP Roadmap

The STEP Roadmap, resulting from the above community consultation process, aims to provide a research roadmap that will become a blueprint for the realisation of the VPH.  The document focuses on the fact that currently, in biomedical research and clinical practice, we are "investigating the human body by pretending that it is a jigsaw puzzle made up of a trillion pieces and we are trying to understand the whole picture by looking only at a single piece or, maybe, a few closely interconnected pieces; it is no surprise that we are not finding it easy."¹ Accordingly, the document describes the need for development of the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH): a "methodological and technological framework to enable investigations of the human body as a single (though hugely complex) system."¹

We document authors claim that, given sufficient resources, the "European Research System can develop, over the next 10 years, the methodological and technological framework that is the VPH."¹ The essential requirements for developing the VPH are outlined.  The document also covers current state of knowledge; the challenges that the development of the VPH poses; the material, environmental, societal and other barriers that must be overcome; and the impact that VPH will have on research, industry, clinical practice and society at large.

The EC Seventh Framework VPH Initiative (VPH-I) is built firmly on the foundations laid by the STEP consultation process and roadmap document.  The VPH NoE project aims to provide the infrastructural ‘glue' (technical resources, support for integrative research, training, policy development) to tie together the other VPH-I projects, each of which has at its heart the pursuit of integrative biomedical modeling and simulation, for patient-specific healthcare.

BioMed Town

BioMed Town played a key role in the STEP roadmapping exercise, by providing a common space for VPH/physiome stakeholders to meet, share ideas, and collectively author documents.  Since completion of the STEP project, BioMed Town has continued to grow, and now hosts a variety of VPH-related information and resources.   Any person who has a professional or educational interest in biomedical research & technology may submit an application form to the City Managers to become a BioMed Town member. 

1. Seeding the Europhysiome: A Roadmap to the Virtual Physiological Human